Nickelodeon Interactive Entertainment
Nickelodeon Interactive Entertainment (initially Nickelodeon Computer Software and later in early 2000's Nick Games) is an American video game company. It self-publishes and distributes multi-platform video games and to the interactive entertainment worldwide. Nickelodeon Interactive Entertainment is a subsidiary of Viacom New Media; thus a part of Viacom Media Networks media conglomerate Most of the games released by THQ were typically tie-in products to existing character of the Nickelodeon franchises but until April 2013, The Nickelodeon videogame license was acquired by Activision leaving their Nickelodeon mascot Mitchell Van Morgan ''and ''Quinn the Rockstar at the hands of THQ's parent company Nordic Games and Quinn the Rockstar ''developer JeremySoft, and Nickelodeon's British/Irish TV channel Nickelodeon UK and the THQ trademark product revival on August 16, 2016. However, it will continue to release games for iOS and Android mobile devices under its own label Nickelodeon Mobile. On 21 March 2018, after Activision's Nickelodeon license expired, THQ Nordic announced a new partnership with the channel through which they would re-release various THQ-published Nickelodeon titles. Background Initially Nickelodeon licensed its characters in the early 1990s for the games: ''Mitchell Van Morgan for Game Boy Color, Quinn the Rockstar ''for PlayStation and Nintendo 64, ''Nickelodeon Guts for SNES, or Nickelodeon 3D-Movie Maker for personal computers. History Nickelodeon Computer software In 1994, Nickelodeon started its own in house gaming unit, Nickelodeon Computer Software (NCS). NCS generally used as third-party development studios for Viacom New Media and THQ to design spin-off games using its existing portfolio of characters. NCS had little success attributed by senior Viacom executives due to low product quality and lack of understanding the differences between film, TV show and games. The few market successes were third party published games based on major Nickelodeon animated series like Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Rocko's Modern Life and Ren & Stimpy with one videogame based on the Nickelodeon game show like Nickelodeon Guts in 1994. This led to a move from self-developed and self-published to funding and development management of games with third parties published the game. Using the film studio style formula, NCS was reorganized into Nickelodeon Interactive (NI) on December 5, 1994 with the merging of NCS and Viacom Television and Telecommunications division. On April 15, 1997, Viacom New Media reduced its staff by 20% ending in-house video game production.This increased the requests for licensing from third-party games companies. Under this plan, development and production cost risks were transferred to the game companies but reduced the per-unit revenue generated to Nickelodeon and effectively yielded a near 100 percent margin of licensed game sales. Nick Games (2003-2009) Nick Games (Nickelodeon Games) was spun out of Nickelodeon Interactive in 2003 after a 2002 strategic review that chose to return to being a dedicated videogames distribution of Viacom. With Nick Games focused on children's games, Nickelodeon Games took on all other content game including mobile and online mediums. Nick Games is probably best known for the ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' series with THQ Studios Austraila And Paper Mitchell series along with American publisher THQ and the Japanese developer Square Enix. In the beginning of 2007, Nick Games was used for THQ's family-oriented video game publisher and developer called Play THQ. The label was primarily used to publish Nickelodeon licensed game titles like [http://mitchell.wikia.com/wiki/Mitchell_Van_Morgan_(Series) Mitchell Van Morgan], ''Quinn the Rockstar'', ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'', ''SpongeBob SquarePants'', ''Tak'' series, ''Nicktoons'' and much more. Nickelodeon Interactive Games (2009-2013) In 2009, The Viacom Company renamed Nick Games to Nickelodeon Interactive Games. The studio publishes both Nickelodeon and non-Nickelodeon branded video games for all platforms worldwide, with titles that feature its consumer brands including Viacom, CBS, MTV, and Paramount Pictures (which is used as a label for Viacom). In July 2007, the studio acquired Viacom New Media. Nickelodeon Interactive Games sold to Activision as Mitchell Van Morgan and Quinn the Rockstar video games are sold to Nordic Games and JeremySoft (2013-present) in April 2013, The Nickelodeon video game license was acquired by Activision, except for Mitchell Van Morgan's and Quinn the Rockstar. Mitchell Van Morgan and Quinn the Rockstar are the only Nickelodeon video game license was acquired by two company, which is THQ's parent company Nordic Games, and Quinn the Rockstar developer JeremySoft because of Nickelodeon Interactive Games' careless act to their main flagship franchise. List of games Main article: List of video games from Nickelodeon Interactive games Divisions * MITCHELL Project, based on MTV Japan. The only Nickelodeon Videogame licensing team for creating the Mitchell Van Morgan trademarks acquired in October 1999 after the debut of the Mitchell series. * Paramount Digital Entertainment, a division under Paramount Pictures Corporation, develops and distributes movies and video games digitally via various platforms including online, mobile devices, portable devices and the Viacom 90s revival video games such as the Aaahh!!! Real Monsters videogame to the 2010s videogame based on the Nickelodeon Movie film Rango and the video game based on The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water film called SpongeBob HeroPants. This Viacom division is also the revival of Viacom's deceased video game publisher Viacom New Media. Former/defunct * Viacom New Media, Viacom's former videogame publisher which revolutionized the SNES & Sega Genesis era in 1991-1997. * THQ Studios Australia, THQ's Australian studio 2005-2011. * Infogrames, Nickelodeon's former videogame publisher during the 2000s THQ era acquired by and reincorporated as Atari's French subsidiary Atari, SA in 2009 and it is scheduled to reinvent the Atari brand in the 2010s era Category:Company Category:Viacom